


Impressions of Wildlife

by Gilli_ann



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:50:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1920465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilli_ann/pseuds/Gilli_ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ennis the shy accountant meets Jack, the critically acclaimed and extremely charming painter. Animal metaphors abound, and innovative, risqué art ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impressions of Wildlife

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The original Ennis and Jack do not belong to me, but to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no copyright infringement and make no profit.
> 
> Sentences in italics represent Ennis' thoughts.
> 
> A vernissage is the first (often private) showing of an art exhibition.
> 
> Spencer Tunick is an American artist best known for his installations and photographs featuring large numbers of nude people posed in artistic formations.

**Impressions of wildlife**  
 

Ennis was already looking for a way to politely leave the vernissage. He had been handed an invitation by the gallery’s owner, Alicia, and since he was their accountant after all, he’d felt he had to show. He didn’t follow the art world at all, didn’t know the artist – perhaps Alicia was worried there’d be too few attendees.  
   
If so, she’d obviously been mistaken. The place was teeming with cool and hip people, studying the colorful, mostly abstract canvases that covered every wall. Quite intriguing, really, but not anyway near as mesmerizing as the painter himself.  
   
Ennis studied the man out of the corner of his eye, while pretending to admire a brightly mostly orange painting, filled with strange bluish shapes like shadows stretching over the savanna at sundown. 'Fire. Longing' was the painting’s title. _Are those shapes humans… or Baobab trees? Maybe mushrooms? Some sort of deep ocean creature? Oh, who cares! Look at that stunning, stunning man! No, don’t look… don’t! Look away! Get a grip on yourself!_

Ennis was sweating.  
   
The artist himself stood in the middle of the room, chatting amiably with a small group of people. They seemed to hang on his every word. He had glossy dark hair, fashionably spiked. A blindingly white shirt set off the rest of his attire – all of it sleek, black, classy. He exuded superb poise balanced with a sort of languid menace. A _panther among the gazelles. An orca among tunas. A falcon among geese._

Whatever animal he resembled most, Jack Twist was drop-dead gorgeous, there was no other way to describe him. _A mating call on legs! The call of the wild...._

Yes, it was true that Ennis frequently watched the wildlife specials at home in his flat all alone.  
   
He surreptitiously looked around. The other men here definitely seemed to take their metrosexual obligations very seriously. Intellectual-looking mix of revival bohemian blended with metal. _Is there a term for that? Maybe I should have watched Project Runway instead of Animal Planet after all._  
   
Under the bright lights and in the presence of so many chic and confident people, Ennis felt as conspicuous and out of place as a turtle in a school of shimmering gold fish. _Again with the animal comparisons!_ He really couldn’t hover around like a vampire bat any longer, staring at the artist as hungrily as if he planned to zoom in and drain the man of his life's blood. Someone will notice, and then I’ll be left high and dry and helpless like those poor whales stranded on the beach in – oh, never mind!  
   
He’d grab a catalogue – _hopefully it’s got his picture! –_ and get out of there. Surely he’d been there long enough now to politely beat the retreat. He just had to speak a few words to Alicia, and then he would leave, be on his way home to his den where he could lick this unexpected arrow-wound to his heart in peace.  
   
“Mr. Del Mar! Ennis! You came, how lovely!” Alicia hooked her arm through his, the bright red lips in her perfectly painted face pulled wide over a row of pearly white teeth. _How come she looks like a predator, all of a sudden? But a very elegant one._  
   
She spoke to him coaxingly, her low voice soothing. “Now that you’re here, you simply _must_ meet Jack…” She somehow dragged him across the floor, though his feet didn’t seem to want to cooperate at all. He stumbled along in her wake feeling like a deer on ice. 

“Jack, this is our accountant, would you believe it? He admires you – your art – very much. Isn’t he a dish and a dear?” _Deer?_ Ennis worryingly wondered if she’d read his mind.  
   
The dark-headed artist turned towards them, raking Ennis up and down with an incredible pair of piercingly blue eyes. He grinned, a bright flash of white. His effortless feline grace was striking and unquestionable. 

Ennis squinted and leaned forward. _He’s got the blue eyes of a snow leopard and the lashes of a…. a giraffe! Is he really human?_  
   
Ennis struggled with himself and with gravity, fighting to keep upright. He was dizzy.  
   
“Pleased to meet you,” Jack said, his eyes bright. He extended his hand.  
   
Ennis grabbed it, and held on, much as if Jack’d thrown him a lifeline. “Ennis,” he mumbled. Jack’s eyebrows shot up.  
   
“Ennis – that’s all?”  
   
“Del Mar,” Ennis blurted, embarrassed.  
   
Jack grinned. “From the sea! But what kind of sea creature are you? A shark or a dolphin, a shrimp or maybe an octopus? It makes a difference, you know.”  
   
Ennis gaped.  
   
 “Well, now you definitely give me a fish-like impression,” Jack laughed, his hand still firmly holding Ennis’s.  
   
The painter leaned forward, his voice dropping to a murmur. “That’s good. I like fish. Take sushi now. Delicious. Tasty. Juicy. Elemental and raw. It makes my mouth water.” His tongue peeked out, swiping along his upper lip, re-focusing Ennis’s rapt attention from his eyes to those now-moistened lips.  
   
Ennis gulped.  
   
They stood like that for a moment. Neither spoke.  
   
Alicia looked from one to the other and obviously decided it was time to get some sort of conversation going again. Her long slender hand on Jack’s arm had nails like crimson talons, fastening on his arm as if he were her prey.  
   
“Jack darling, do tell us about your next project! I heard through the grapevine that it’s going to be exciting and quite risqué, and you’ve kept your plans under wraps for far too long!”  
   
The artist grinned again, exuding genuine charm, looking at her and back to the still-speechless Ennis.  
   
“Yes, it’ll be quite political in nature. I call it ‘the backside of power’. Social satire and critique expressed by…. well, by buttocks, actually.”  
   
“Huhn?” Ennis said, blushing as he realized just how clueless he sounded. _Yes, I’m the premier hick in town, never even set foot in an art gallery, no ma’am…. Why do you ask?_  
   
Jack nodded and evidently didn’t mind repeating himself. “Bums. Butt cheeks. Behinds. Hineys. Asses. Basically, I paint various people’s butts in bright colors – water soluble paints, so not to worry - and they sit down for me to make an impression. By now I already have a good collection of bright bum shapes. I’ll digitally enhance and resize each painting, paint patterns and shapes on them, and use them in collages. I’m planning a number of pictures where each butt imprint is as small as a pixel – various portraits of politicians, some quite provocative images.…There’ll be a lot of subtext, you might say.”  
   
Ennis stared at him. “That sounds….” He tried to think of something. It sounded weird, and offensive, and quite infantile, really. But none of those words managed to crowd to the front of his brain, because all his cerebral capacity was occupied with Jack and whispering _subtext, buttsex, subtext, buttsex_ in Ennis’s mind.  “…..strange, he ended lamely.  
   
“Tell you what - many of my _sitters”_ – Jack flashed another bright grin – “have told me they find it quite liberating. Exciting. A little daunting. Baring their butts gets their energies flowing. I paint each and every buttock myself. Sometimes just one color, sometimes two, now and then more. I read the persons, study their attitude and posture, discover the story behind their behinds, as it were, to find the proper colors and patterns. Butts don't lie. They tell the tale of how a life’s been lived.”  
   
He gestured, still smiling. “Sometimes I do several people at once.”  
   
 _Oh God, oh my God, the visuals!_ Ennis cleared his throat nervously, his eyes glazing over.  
   
Jack laughed, with a self-deprecating little shrug that belied his quite intense stare. “They tell me it’s every bit as exhilarating as showing up for a Spencer Tunick photo session. Standing there with your goods on display and you butt painted blue, you’re pretty vulnerable. But still about to make an _impression._ “  
   
“Uhnnn,” Ennis said, feeling out of his depth, his eyes going helplessly to Alicia. 

All this talk about buttocks….  It made him envisage Jack’s firm ass, and _oh God, he was about to embarrass himself completely!_

“Well, it was nice to....  I have to…”  
   
“Why don’t you come sit for me, Ennis?” Jack interrupted, his blue eyes glittering hypnotically as he once more stepped very close. “Get to know the process. Feel the energy flowing, watch the creative juices rising to the surface?”  
   
Ennis groaned. _Pretty soon something else will be rising and flowing with juices!_ “I’m sorry, I… don’t think….”  
   
“Oh come on, Ennis,” Alicia said brightly, excitedly, her eyes laughing at him. _How much champagne has that woman downed?_

“It’s an honor, Ennis! And it will be fun! I’ve always thought that with all your uptight suits, restrained behavior, and single-minded bean-counting, you’ve surely got to hide a passionate exhibitionist at your core.” She tipped her head sideways coyly, and Ennis stared at her in horror as she gave him a little push. 

She carried on without losing a beat. “As Jack said, your butt can’t possibly hide your true nature. Your wild nature! Now do prove me right, please!”  
   
Jack nodded, and placed a hand on Ennis’s arm. _God, the heat, radiating, pulsating from the touch of those long fine fingers to my face and to my…! Ack!_

“Yes, come take a walk on the wild side for once! You will like it!”  
   
“Erggg… Oh, OK. Why not?” Ennis said, the total brain meltdown he was experiencing leading to complete disconnect between speech and reason.  
   
Jack smiled, and patted his shoulder. Ennis nearly choked. “Come to my studio tomorrow evening – I’ll be waiting, paint and brushes and all my equipment ready.”  
   
Jack paused for a moment, studying Ennis, seemingly taking pity on him, his face going serious.  
   
“Of course, if it makes you feel more comfortable, bring a friend along to watch the process. It’s up to you.”  
   
Ennis licked his lips. “That….that won’t be necessary,” he said. “I don’t need a minder. I’m a big boy.”  
   
Jack chuckled with amusement. His eyes sparkled and his voice was soft and intimate as he leaned forward to speak close to Ennis’s ear. “I see that. It’s very hard……..not to,” he whispered.  
   
Ennis blushed. But his heart was beating with frantic anticipation as he stumbled out into the rainy street. _Is it tomorrow already?_

 

x – x – x

   
Jack’s next exhibition was a thundering success. His buttock statements were received with interest and loud and diverging opinions, the reviews ranging from ridicule to declarations of immediate canonization in the halls of important art.  
   
The art critics focused on the symbolism.

The tabloids focused on running down the various celebrities who had sat for Jack, and many of them came forward to discuss the experience and what statements they had wanted to make. And of course most of them took the opportunity to put their butts on display for the magazines, all in good will so that the reading masses could contrast and compare art and the real life - though heavily airbrushed - version.  
   
Particular attention was paid to an immense impression, blown up to many times the original proportions, the opening statement of the whole exhibition. It was pure gold, with tiny and delicate images of wild animals etched across it – leaping, swimming, running, prancing – all of them slightly blurred to give the impression of speed and urgency.  
   
‘The wild side’ was the artwork’s title, and the sitter remained unknown.  
   
In interviews Jack insisted that it was up to everyone to interpret the statement this particular impression was making, and he remained cheekily enigmatic no matter how much they pressed him for clues.  
   
“But maybe I shouldn’t be so secretive,” he mused in low tones to Ennis late one evening when they were lying together in Jack’s big bed, facing each other, sweaty and panting. “There’s two sides to every person. Revealing the wild side can be intense and rewarding. Perhaps the whole world should get to know that side of you.”  
   
Ennis growled, a slow deep sound of protest with more than a hint of a purr in it.  
   
Jack reached out, his hand smoothing down Ennis’s back, sliding down to his ass, squeezing it in a firm grip. “I’m a lucky guy. However much people discuss and speculate, the original will always belong to me.”  
   
Jack’s eyes glinted in the dusky room, a challenging flash of teeth goading Ennis on.  
   
Ennis pounced.


End file.
